CHSH

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

chsh changes the user login shell. This determines
the name of the user's initial login command. A normal user
may only change the login shell for their own account, the
super user may change the login shell for any
account.

The only restrictions placed on the login shell is that the
command name must be listed in /etc/shells, unless
the invoker is the super-user, and then any value may be
added. An account with a restricted login shell may not
change their login shell. For this reason, placing
/bin/rsh in /etc/shells is discouraged since
accidentally changing to a restricted shell would prevent
the user from every changing their login shell back to its
original value.

If the -s option is not selected, chsh
operates in an interactive fashion, prompting the user with
the current login shell. Enter the new value to change the
field, or leave the line blank to use the current value. The
current value is displayed between a pair of [?
marks.

The file, /etc/login.defs, defines some configuration
options that affects how chsh operates, especially for
non-root users.

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